Being a Bender
by MrsJohnBender
Summary: John bender is surprised with a new step brother, someone he'd already gotten quite acquainted with. refurbished
1. Chapter 1

_"Don't take life too seriously. You won't get out alive." ~Elbert Hubbard_

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original characters form The Breakfast Club

* * *

Freezing rain hit hard against the pavement, turning what was otherwise just a layer of dirt with a few blades of grass sticking out of it-also known as the Bender family yard-into a giant mud pit. A bolt of lightning struck, and the yappy dog next door could be heard from inside the paper thin walls, barking up a storm bigger than the one that was happening right outside.

John Bender took a drag of his cigarette, looking at the house as if to see inside. He secretly hoped the next bolt of lightning would somehow strike that fucking dog.

The cold air blew, nipping at John's exposed face. He was freezing his fucking ass off, but he didn't dare consider going inside. At that very moment, right inside his house, his old man, normally passed out drunk by this time in the evening, was making room for a new family. Their new family. John didn't know what made him more nauseous: the fact that his father had managed getting eloped to a woman he'd never even met, which said wonders about their bond, or the fact that his father actually thought a new family would make him happy.

John was plenty used to having the temporary whore de jour hanging around the house, treating him as if he were her own defect son until she was gone, and it was on to the next one, but he never imagined his father would actually end up having some sort of marriage with one, even if their wedding had only been a court union (which somehow, didn't surprise John). And the whole time, he neglected to tell his own fucking family that the Bender household was expanding.

An extra loud roar of thunder startled John, practically making him jump. He finally came to the conclusion on the actions he would take. He was going to get so unbelievably drunk that it wouldn't even matter to him. He was going to smoke all of his left over pot until he fell asleep, and in the morning, when the new "family" arrived, he was going to lock himself in his room like a stubborn little boy. It would be embarrassing, but these were drastic times. There was no way in hell John Bender was going to share a room with anyone else's children. Within an hour of the new family being there, he was going to make sure the Bender family was back down to its original three. Plus the occasional whore.

John immediately went to work initiating his plan. He snuck a case of his father's beer into his room with such ease, it sickened him. His old man was so damn busy moving things around, he didn't even notice his good for nothing son stealing a full case of his beer, right from under his nose.

John let himself fall onto the dusty, beaten up matrice he called a bed. A spring poked him in the side, but he ignored it and popped open the first beer. He chugged it so fast, he felt himself suffocating on the liquid, but he refused to stop. As soon as it was gone, he instantly moved onto the next one, and the next one, until the last drop of liquid from the case slid down his throat.

* * *

"What, are you stupid are something? Wake the hell up!"

The annoyed demand grabbed John's attention long enough to pull him into full consciousness, but not long enough to make it worth the effort of opening his eyes long enough for them to adjust to the light. Even with a hangover, John instantly recognized the voice to belong to his older brother, Jake, and he wasn't in the mood to deal with him any more than he was to deal with a single God damned person in Shermer.

Jake, losing patience grabbed the pillow from the floor and started hitting John in the back of the head with it. The older brother had always been playfully aggressive with John growing up, but never in a way that would cause any sort of physical pain. No, that was his father's job.

"That had better not be the pillow you whack off to ass-wipe." John mumbled, not bothering to move. He smiled when Jake stopped hitting him long enough to laugh. John didn't know why, but he got some satisfaction from impressing his older brother. Jake was twenty-one years old, a high school drop-out, and still living at home with his alcoholic, abusive father-he was hardly the role model type, but John couldn't help but get satisfaction whenever Jake thought he was funny, or witty-even when he referred to him as a "brainiac".

"Johnny boy, you's and I both know that I would never do such a deplorable thing to this pillow," Jake started, surprising John with the level of seriousness in his statement, before adding, "masturbation isn't needed when I've got Chelsea to taint my pillows." He said with an obnoxious laugh as he threw the pillow at John's disgusted face.

John could just about vomit at the thought of his brother being with such a fucking slut, let alone being with her in the house they shared. He figured the couches would probably have been crawling with fucking crabs if his brother wasn't too embarrassed about the state of the house to have Chelsea in it for any amount of time longer than a few minutes-not that he really had anything to be embarrassed about. It wasn't like Chelsea was staying at the fucking Hilton or anything.

"Yeah, and I wonder who else is getting their pillows tainted by that skank." John mumbled, laying back down and pulling the pillow over his face, blocking out all the light. He tried remembering how much he'd had to drink the night before, but only came to the conclusion that it had to have been more than just the six pack. He thought about persuading Jake to get him an aspirin, but then he would have to deal with his suspicions on just why he needed headache medication, and he was really in no mood to deal with that kind of shit.

Whenever Jake caught wind that John had done the slightest thing wrong; gotten drunk, gotten stoned, gotten two months detention that he was only halfway through serving…he'd flip a shit. He'd lecture John for hours, even bringing it up randomly at any opportunity he got, because nagging was the only suitable punishment Jake could think of that he could actually enforce, being a brother and not a father, since their real father didn't give a shit. It was like Jake was the biggest hypocrite ever; he partied more than anyone John knew, but then turned into a complete spaz whenever he caught John taking one hit.

"That isn't funny John. She really tries to do good by you and you just treat her like shit. Why don't you leave Chelsea alone and go terrorize our new little family. They've been waiting like fifteen minutes. You were supposed to be ready by now. Jesus John, did you even change your clothes from yesterday?" Jake asked, not announcing his suspicions, but making it perfectly clear that he was implying that he knew John had gotten wasted.

"I'm not sharing my room." Was all John could say, even though there were a million cruel things he wanted to scream just the night before. What could he say? No matter how much he protested, it wouldn't change the fact that those little assholes were downstairs, waiting to meet him, waiting to make him their "family", and waiting to invade his room and life.

Jake laughed and threw John a sweater and a pair of nice jeans from his own room, knowing damn well that whatever John had in his drawers would just make him look like some kind of bum. He didn't understand how John found a way to supply himself with weed, alcohol, and cigarettes all the damn time, but didn't own one nice outfit. It was baffling.

John growled and snatched the clothes. He hated wearing Jake's clothes. His older brother was not only four years older than him, but was ripped. Jake had been working out intensely since he was thirteen, not only to protect himself, but to protect his brother, so not only were his clothes too long, they were fucking huge.

He considered tossing them back at Jake and telling him to get out of his room, but honestly, it wasn't worth the fight. They were already in the fucking house. That wasn't going to change no matter how much he fought it. It wasn't even worth the fucking effort. He was just going to get it over with as soon as possible, then begin making their lives a living hell until they decided to leave, or better yet, not even put forth that much effort, and just let the old man drive them away.

John started to lift his shirt, but stopped, and told Jake to turn around. John had a scar on his torso going all the way from his left shoulder to his right hip, an "accident" that had almost killed him. He was so ashamed of it that he wouldn't even let his brother see it. Of course, John was ashamed of _all _his scars, because they were _all _permanent evidence of a battle he had lost, but this wasn't exactly some damn cigar burn, it was fucking huge. His other scars could go undetected, but the one on his torso was impossible not to notice.

Jake sighed and turned around. His brother's embarrassment around him made absolutely no sense to him. He had been there when the scar had been inflicted on him, he was even the reason John had gotten the help he needed, and probably the reason John was even still there after that, yet John acted as if some stupid scar was this big secret.

"Ready yet Princess?" Jake asked impatiently, flinching at a surprise pillow that hit the back of his head. He immediately turned around and tackled John, pinning him down to the matrice. Holding both his wrists in one hand and the back of his head down in the other, he laughed, and playfully demanded John say uncle.

"Alright! Get the fuck off me fag!" John yelled as he fought his way free. He hated when people tackled him. It was sneaky; by the time he'd realize what was happening, he would freeze up and be on the ground within a minute. At least with a fight he initiated, or a fight he saw coming, he would be able to react. Not if someone just went in for the tackle. The first thing he would think of was his dad, and he would freeze up.

John got up with a sigh, and without saying anything else, started for the living room. He'd avoided it long enough. He had to get meeting these people out of the way, so he could get back in his own clothes, go out, and forget.

As John marched purposefully into the living room, and laid eyes on what his father intended to mold into their new "family", John's normal expression of grimace instantly transformed into that of disbelief.

Andrew Clark seemed to unintentionally mimic the response. No _fucking _way. It couldn't be real. John Bender couldn't be his new step brother. The fates had been pretty cruel to him lately, but that was just surreal. He was probably his real step brother's friend, probably had just stayed the night or something, probably just wanted to get a look at the people who would have to cram into the already small house. Just to soak up everyone's misfortune. Although, he did bare a resemblance to the old man…

John swallowed hard, not taking his eyes off the jock. This was too unreal. He didn't even know how to react. Part of him wanted to do what he always did, to be a complete ass, to get a rise out of Andrew, do what he planned on doing before he saw who stood in his living room. But he couldn't. Andrew Clark wasn't some unknown, some unfortunate kid with only half an idea of what his mother had gotten him into. He knew John. He was one of the few people who _knew _John, not just knew _of _John. This was dangerous.

Andrew was going to be living in John's house. Every day. Knowing what he knew. This was so intense, that John couldn't even begin to wrap his brain around it. His family life was his biggest embarrassment. John had nothing to be particularly proud of, but his family life, that was the only thing he was ashamed of. And Andrew had front row seats to that. Not just the filth he lived in, the bills that piled up, the lack of family portraits hanging around the house, not just his dead beat father and his drop out brother. Everything. Every fucking fight, every fucking beating.

John's next instinctual response was to yell. To scream so loud, he would break the fucking sound barrier. To tell them to get the fuck out of his house. To call his father out on what he fucking was, to throw something, to just…scream.

Silence.

"Hey…man" Andrew said unpretentiously. His voice cracked like an awkward boy going through puberty. He didn't know how to react any more than John did, but for the sake of making a good impression on his new step father, his new step brother, and the mother he rarely saw in person, he made the effort. He wasn't about to make a scene, he just hoped John would feel the same for once in his life.

John swallowed hard again.

Andrew was being awkwardly friendly because there were other people around. In reality, it was the first time he had acknowledged John in a month. Needless to say, he had not kept his promise; none of them had, technically. Andrew continued to date Allison, who was now a mini-Clair. She'd even started asking to be called Allie, so nobody could make the connection to who she used to be. Not that they had ever noticed her to realize she was the same Allison Reynolds, with new clothes. She ignored anyone that couldn't help her popularity. Her opinion about not having friends who would mind who she was friends with, apparently, completely changed . Clair, who had nothing to lose anymore, had stayed friends with Allison, and simultaneously, stayed in touch with Andrew, of course, as he was dating Allison. As for John? They forgot about him. Being friends with him would mean accepting the stigmata that they were rule breakers as well. Not that John minded. He didn't particularly want to be friends with any of them either, they could hurt his rep just as much as he could shatter theirs. Brain…John had no fucking idea what happened to that kid.

After that Monday back at school, when Andrew had walked past him without even a glance in his direction, John had rested easy under the impression that he would never see any of them again. That they'd forget what they knew, and never tell anyone, because that would be acknowledging they'd ever had any sort of close connection. And now the very worst thing had happened; Andrew was living there. Neither one could escape the other's presence, and John's secrets, wrapped in ribbon, were just a tug away from being exposed.

"Why don't you boys get cleaned up for dinner. We ordered pizza…nothing too fancy." Andrew's mom said awkwardly, detecting the discomforting silence but too afraid to bring attention to her realization.

"Sounds charming." John mumbled as he rolled his eyes, turned around, and started for his room. His rage had boiled past where it had been that day after imitating his family life and being called a liar, but he wouldn't dare show that at home. To raise your voice was a mistake that usually ended in a bloody mouth, something John would avoid at all costs in front of that particular crowd.

John slammed his door and shrugged out of his brother's clothes. He needed a plan. They couldn't stay there much longer, and _he_ couldn't stay there another minute. He needed to get out, blow off some steam, and think about what he was going to do.

_Fuck. _John thought as he kicked the sweater and projected it into the dresser. He'd smoked the last of his "idea motivator" the night before. He was dry, and he had no fucking money that week. He could always get drunk. Alcohol was an excellent memory suppressor. Unfortunately, it suppressed everything else, and he needed to be on his game. He needed to get Andrew Clark the fuck out of his house as fast as humanly possible.

John's heart jumped into his throat when he heard the eerie squeaking of the hinges in his door. He instantly grabbed the first piece of fabric he saw from the ground, attempted to cover as much of his torso as he could, before twisted to face the door. It was fucking Andrew.

"Get the fuck out!" John shouted, reaching for an empty bottle of beer and tossing it at the door, while Andrew pulled it shut as fast as his reflexes would allow.

John leaned his back against the door, panting hard. He quickly played back the moment, searching for any mistake, any moment where he could have revealed any more of his fucking scars to Andrew, as if the first fucking time hadn't been bad enough, wasn't enough of a regret.

On the other end, Andrew leaned his back against the door as well, catching his breath. John was a fucking madman, and _this _was who he was going to be living with. John, and his father.

But maybe he had made it up? He did lie a lot. So what if he had one single scar? Andrew had scars too. John had probably done that to his fucking self. Just to help his image. John was a worthless burner. It wasn't beyond him to do something irrationally stupid like that.

_Screw this. _Andrew thought, picking himself up from the door. He was going to play happy in the house for the time being, for his mother's sake, but he wasn't staying there long. He needed out of that house. He needed a plan.

* * *

**A/N: As I reached a stump in another story that I've refurbished and have been finished (a stump I like to call "fucking deleted all three of the next three chapters I'd been working on, because I'm an idiot, and instead of typing them on a document, decided to use doc manager which self deletes, and now I need to gain the motivation to retype them all back, then, retyped those three chapters plus three more, and my fucking computer deleted them" -That's a long name for a stump), I decided to look back at some of the pieces I had worked on back in the D. This one was God awful. Not that any of the unfinished submissions of my youth are very interesting, or manage to stay true to any of the characters, but for how many times I had watched The Breakfast Club during the time this was written (we're talking about at least once a day here. It was like comfort food to me-movie form), I had kind of expected a little more when I clicked the link to my own forgotten story. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I typed a single line of this story. I half considered just deleting it, since the plot doesn't even make much sense (I mean...what the hell was I thinking? I don't even know how I imagined to explain why Andrew's mother would leave his father and then instantly go off to marry a drunk, or how I ever imagined I'd be able to explain her staying and putting her own son in danger once she realized the abuse in the house), but it was too much of a challenge to resist, taking this story, with a plot that had to have come from some deluded dream I had, and making it make sense. In all honestly, I couldn't bare to read more than a few paragraphs of the original, so besides the plot, and the overall beginning staying the same, this will be completely revamped. I might do this to all the random rambles that, in my youth, I called "fanfictions". Partly because I like the challenge, and partly because I'm not particularly fond of the idea of those being out there, under the same username as my recent work, which is obviously not the same as my work when I was a middle schooler, as I am quite obviously not the same either. This one, I felt, needed immediate attention, because it was more recent (even though it was still four years ago lol), and it was just...well, in John Bender's words "demented and sad".**

**sooo thanks to all who read the new, revamped version, and thanks to all who read that giant four am babble haha.**


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to The Breakfast Club and it's characters.

* * *

John glared in disgust at Andrew, sleeping soundly on his couch. Although, admittedly, it was better than him sleeping in John's room, the fact that he'd spent the night soundly anywhere in _his_ house bothered him.

He moved on. He didn't have time for this shit, yet in the kitchen, another upsetting view. His new fucking "mommy" with a pan of eggs over the open flame of the stove. She smiled at him, the sun from the small kitchen window hitting her soft skin and blond hair, making her look out of place in the color faded, broken down kitchen. At that moment, with that smile, that soft perfume, and that pastel dress, she looked way too much like his own mom for John to be able to stomach her.

"Hey! I already called you and Andrew out of school for today. You can go lay back down if you want, breakfast will be done in about fifteen minutes. We're going to have a fun day getting to know each other." The woman said, saying so many things, all at once, that just didn't get said in that kitchen. Fun? "get to know each other"? Breakfast? Good God, that house was going to eat the woman alive.

"I have to work today, _Mommy_." John said, grabbing his long gray coat from the table and brushing past the woman. He wasn't playing nice with her just because they shared the same misfortune of residing in the Bender residence. Nobody had showed him compassion for that fact alone, why should he owe compassion or pity back to anyone else in the same predicament?

* * *

Andrew woke up with a spring in his back. He didn't even know it was possible for the springs to be a problem on a couch. The cushions were so worn down, that they were practically flat. He could not get used to this, but he couldn't close his eyes in the same room as John Bender.

Andrew smelled eggs. He stretched out the kinks in his joints as best as he could, and made his way to the kitchen. He started piling the food onto a plate, but stopped when he heard a slight sniffle. Andrew followed the noise to the brittle steps of the back porch.

He sighed and sat beside his mother. He wasn't exactly sure on what to say to comfort her. Besides their nightly phone calls, he didn't really talk to her. Not like he talked to his dad. It was brought to his attention that he didn't really know much about her at all, and for some reason, that made him feel guilty enough to the point that he temporarily forgave her for marrying into the Bender family.

"I just want all of us to be happy, and I know, I know you don't like living here now, and you miss living with your dad, but I just want to give the both of us a family, but you're mad at me, and Joe's son is mad at me, and the oldest just ignores me. We've never really been a family Andy, that's all I want. A family." She said between sniffles.

Andrew brought his mother into a hug, but couldn't help but sigh. He wasn't riding this pity train. It was her fault they'd never been a family. She's the one that had left. He and his father had made a family, all by themselves. It was her fault she was not included in that. If all she wanted was a family, she should have gotten back with his father before he moved out of state. She shouldn't have made the decisions she had made. She shouldn't have become _such_ an embarrassment to the Clark family, that Andrew had only spoken with her via phone until recently, even though she was always just a few streets away.

With that last thought, an annoying sting of guilt poked at Andrew. She had asked him to go to the mall with him. To hang out, to go see a movie. He had refused, coming up with half assed, pathetic excuses, because he was embarrassed. He couldn't even fathom why she brought him such shame; if anyone saw them together, they wouldn't know anything about who she was, what she did, or even that she wasn't with his father. Andrew was ashamed of her to the point that it didn't matter that if other people saw them together, that they wouldn't share his embarrassment, just knowing himself made him sick, so he had kept it to phone conversations for five whole years.

"We're going to be a family, Mom, and I'm going to be a better son. I promise." Andrew whispered. He decided that, for his mother's sake, he'd leave out the "just not with these people" part of his statement. He'd just have to stomach pretending to be happy there for a little longer, until he could come up with a plan to get them out, or until the Bender's drove them out.

* * *

John tossed his coat on the kitchen table and pulled a beer out of the ice box. Inside the fridge was leftover pasta from a "family" dinner, a new, strange addition to their house, to go with the new addition of the house.

John made a disgusted face and took a big gulp of the beer. After another rough day at work, he just wanted to come home to the normal scene. His father passed out in front of the television, his brother at Chelsea's house, and an empty fridge. The unpleasantly familiar.

He quietly finished off the beer, grabbed another, and headed towards his room. After a fourteen hour day, he really didn't have the energy to be any more upset about the pasta than he already was. Otherwise, he would have pissed in it.

John turned the light on in his room to find Andrew, sitting on the brand new bed, dramatically glaring at the doorway.

"Jesus fucking Christ." John said, throwing off another layer and plopping himself on his own bed. After dealing with drunk assholes all night, John wasn't particularly in the mood for this overly dramatic shit. Quite honestly, he wasn't really in the mood for anything short of sleep, but he had a feeling that it wasn't going to happen that night.

"You made my mom cry, you fucking prick." Andrew sneered.

_No, you both did. _

That thought was almost unbearable to Andrew. He knew he'd be made fun of for it if he ever let anyone know, but Andrew actually had a huge conscience. While others were still high fiving him for the duct tape gag, bringing the story up at any opportunity and calling him "the man", he still had an intense burning in his gut at the realization that he'd been the animal to do what he did to that fucking kid. He'd felt guilty when he'd set John off by calling him a liar about his home life, he felt guilty that he ignored John and Brian at school, he felt guilty that he felt ashamed of his mom, and most importantly, he felt guilty that he'd been part of the reason that she was crying. It made him all the more angry at John, who'd helped push her to her breaking point.

"And the guilt is eating me alive Sporto, believe me." John said sarcastically as he snapped open the beer. What the fuck did the kid want from him? John made a lot of people cry. Daily. The fact that he was an asshole wasn't any sort of news, so why the hell was Andrew getting so worked up over it?

"You know Bender, you'll never change." Andrew said coldly, unknowingly pushing one of John's biggest buttons.

John was normally a hard person to insult. Hell, his dad had been calling him every name in the book since before he was old enough to understand what any of them meant, and the kids at school weren't exactly friendly towards him either. Whatever was said were normally things he had long since accepted to be true anyways. The things that really set him off were the things that he had difficulty accepting, the things he was really ashamed of, the things he didn't want to be true. His father, his home life, his lack of importance, and why that would never change.

"Yeah, and you're a brand new fucking type of guy, aren't you Sport." John mumbled, digging through his pocket for his lighter. He wasn't going to show that he was hurt by the comment. That was a lesson he'd learned long before; never let someone know what they could say to hurt you. Always make it look like you didn't care, about anything, that _nothing_ bothered you. That way, that's what people had to use against you: _nothing_.

"Whatever man, you're obviously too doped up to know anything." Andrew said, rolling his eyes, laying on his back, and throwing a nerf football in the air, catching it softly as it came back down. Truth was, Andrew was almost as tired from "mommy/son bonding" as John was from work, but was too uncomfortable going to sleep now that John was in the room.

"Yeah, you're probably right. So, how's big bri doing now-a-days?" John asked, knowing very well that Andrew didn't know the answer to that. Andrew hadn't changed. He liked to think he had changed, because it made him feel good about himself, but he'd only stayed friends with the two people that couldn't harm his reputation. The prom queen and the prom "princess". Clair the sequel.

"Look, as long as I'm stuck here, let's get some things straight. Don't talk to me, don't look at me, and leave my mother alone, you got that?" Andrew asked, blatantly upset from John's comment. He'd made the mistake that John had learned to avoid. He'd given John full instructions on exactly what to say if he wanted to set him off.

"Oh gee, what a bummer, I really enjoy the interaction I get with you two." John said with a small laugh. In reality, while he felt strongly opposed to Andrew being in his house, and was still open to any idea of getting him the fuck out, he really did like interaction with him. If, of course, interaction meant nothing more than getting a rise out of him. He actually enjoyed it more than he did during the detention. The more John disliked someone, the more he enjoyed making their lives hell, and Andrew had given him many new ways to dislike him since they'd been acquainted.

"Druggie asshole." Andrew mumbled under his breath. It bothered him when John laughed in response. It was like he didn't fucking care when someone insulted him. It was like he couldn't hurt John Bender, unless, of course, he was Vernon. Anyone else, and John found amusement in it. It was so frustrating, especially when he was so easily able to get under Andrew's skin, and Andrew had only knowingly said one thing to him, a whole month earlier, that actually upset him.

"Well, hey Sporto, tell you what. You've still got a daddy, don't you? Why don't you go live with him? Don't stay here on my account, I'll be fine without you. Believe me." John offered, not really expecting Mr. Clark to be an option that Andrew wouldn't have already thought of, but deciding to toss that out there anyways. He hadn't come up with a plan yet, and he was desperate.

"I…can't. He got a new coaching job in Texas." Andrew explained. While he wasn't really interested in talking to John, there was a big part of him that wanted to come on top over him. To leave him with nothing else to say. He didn't know why, but he figured it was because making John Bender run out of things to say was like a competition, and while he hated this about himself, Andrew Clark loved a good competition.

"Ah," John said, turning his head for a moment, his nostril twitching, before turning back to Andrew and adding, "well, I heard that Texas is beautiful this time of year."

"I need to compete for Shermer next year. A college scout has his eye on me. If I start at a new school, I'll lose my ride." Andrew explained, again, hoping John wouldn't have anything negative to say back. Part of him, however, to his dismay, kind of hoped John did. He wasn't the biggest fan of Bender, but talking with him brought him back to that detention a month before. The one place he hadn't been judged, where nobody expected anything of him, where he had been free to be himself. He'd taken that for granted.

"Because we all know that jock strap brain of yours is going to go far in life with a little education. I bet you become the next billionaire." John said sarcastically as he took another swig of the bottle. His stomach growled softly. Fortunately, soft enough that Andrew didn't hear. Not that it was news to Andrew that John was hungry most of the time. It was kind of hard to trick someone into think you were well fed, when the lunch you had brought to a Saturday detention was a can of soda and some dope, but John still had his pride.

"Yeah, well I don't see you making any advancements towards your future, now do I? You know Bender, you'll probably end up living here the rest of your life." Andrew shot back, ashamed that he'd let John see that he'd gotten to him yet again. He waited for a heated response, but instead, John just laughed again.

"Maybe I'll go to college on an academic scholarship." John said sarcastically, though in reality, he was really bothered by the comment. He knew he wasn't going to college, and he liked people to think that he didn't care, that he wanted out of school as soon as possible, but really, he did want to go. Not only for the benefits it promised post-graduation, but just for the experience. Just to be living on campus, living like normal kids his age, instead of in his house.

Andrew scoffed and rolled over on his side. He was through with arguing with John that night, it was a battle he obviously wasn't going to win. He was just getting frustrated. He needed to be coming up with ways to get him and his mother out of that poisonous house, not concentrating on a way that would hopefully get any kind of reaction out of John.

John took another swig before throwing the empty bottle on the ground, turning the light off, and rolling over on his own side. He stayed awake, thinking about college. He'd kind of figured Andrew was going to college, he figured they all were. Probably all with scholarships. He'd figured this for some time, but now that they were talking about it, it bothered him.

John Bender was actually a smart kid, and sometimes, he even realized this. He was witty, that was obvious. His vocabulary was impressive, even though he'd barely ever attended English class. He'd made it as far as he did in school, without ever getting held back, even though he had an absence record that was just as impressive as his vocabulary. He was quick to come up with a plan on most occasions, quick to insult, and knew people enough to almost instantly know what to say to get under their skin. He saw the truth in them, even when they tried to hide it. He did like reading about certain things, he was a quick with math, which simultaneously, along with being overall talented with his hands, made him a genius at shop. John Bender was a naturally smart kid, yet, he didn't have a scholarship, and high school would probably be the extent of his education, if he even made it that far.

He'd been screwed out of college since the day he was born, and he was jealous of every kid who was still in the running.

* * *

Andrew's stomach woke him up in the middle of the night. This wasn't uncommon, Andrew was hungry every few hours. He burned calories like it was his job, in addition to having a lightening fast metabolism. Both of these factors added together made him eat like a starved pig. He could easily put away three sandwiches, and still be hungry.

Andrew felt his way around for the door, nearly tripping three times and stubbing his foot once on the way. Bender was a fucking slob. He didn't know how much longer he'd be able to live in that filth, with dirty clothes and beer bottles lying all over the floor. He didn't know why he would expect anything else, as if his locker hadn't been any indication that his room was a complete mess.

When Andrew made it to the kitchen, he was happy to see a whole large bowl of pasta still in the fridge. He'd assumed John had eaten it when he got home, but figured booze was a more appetizing dinner for someone like Bender. His loss was Andrew's gain; he was starving.

Andrew tried to remember which drawer held the silverware. He opened the first little cubby, but found it to be just an odds and ends drawer. He closed it, but couldn't resist the curiosity to open it again. He was slightly embarrassed to admit it, but he figured everyone would be interested to go snooping around the school criminal's house. To see how he lived, what he had, to get inside his mind, since John had done a pretty good job of building up the walls needed to shut everyone out.

The drawer basically held useless shit. He rummaged through it and found mostly things like paperclips, sticky notes, pens- things that John would take from the library. Things that obviously had no importance to him, since they were in a junk drawer, but he'd stolen just in case they ever would. Or just for the thrill of taking them.

At the bottom of the drawer, Andrew found a photograph. It was a family, almost unidentifiable as the Bender family. Joe looked a lot younger, twenty years younger, even though it couldn't have been more than twelve years ago, judging by John and Jake's sizes. His now gray hair was then black, his beard clean shaven, and his whole presence somehow more aware. Next to him, was a short, smiling young woman. The sun hit her slightly tanned skin, and her eyes gleamed back in return. She was beautiful, in her pastel blue dress and with her long, aurborn hair. In her arms, was John. He seemed to have been about three, but judging from Jake's size, was probably older, and just small for his age. He wore an oversized sweater, probably a hand-me-down from his brother, but had a happiness and an innocence on his face that Andrew had never seen with him. And Jake was so tiny. He had little chicken legs, and little scrawny arms, as he looked up at his brother with a goofy little smile.

Andrew caught himself smiling at the picture, before throwing it back in the drawer. It was kind of reassuring to see John so innocent, so young, so happy. It reminded him that John was human, and that he wasn't stuck living with some animal that would always come out on top. It also reassured him that John had been lying in detention. That wasn't the family of an abused kid. That was a happy family.

Suddenly, Andrew was jealous. John's home life, minus the abuse he'd decided wasn't true, still wasn't very favorable, but it was just as discomforting as it was calming to see that John had been the member of a happy family, that he'd been just as jolly as any other child growing up. It made a happy family seem too normal. If someone like John Bender could have rooted from a happy family, then everyone had to have. It seemed so common, but it wasn't. Some families got divorced, some mother's chose questionable lifestyles that embarrassed their kids, and some kids only talked to their mothers on the phone.

Andrew scoffed at himself. He was so pathetic, that he had gotten jealous at John Bender. It didn't matter if John once had a happy family, that he'd once been a normal kid. He wasn't anymore. He was just a fuck up now. He wasn't going to anywhere in life; Andrew was. It didn't matter that John had spent a childhood in his mother's arms, because she wasn't around anymore. Andrew's was, and he was going to make sure he didn't take that for granted anymore. She was all he had now.

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**A/N: I'm unsatisfied with the title. It's temporary until I think of a new one, because changing the awful title of, "What Brothers Share" just couldn't wait any longer. You have no idea how badly I wanted to call this story "Step Brothers", and how much I'm still considering it.  
**

**EaTMyShOrTs85: thanks for being my first review...four years ago haha.**

**BlackRose96: haha, yeah, I think that was my mentality four years ago. That it'd be interesting and original to put the two together in the same room. I wihs i had executed the idea better then! thanks for reviewing the first chapter of the original!**

**Ksarsera Aditi: Yeah, it was pretty bad haha. I was rereading it and I was like...wow. This was supposed to be Bender? From the movie I've seen over a million times? Thanks for reviewing the original chapter one, sorry it hadn't met your expectations (it didn't reach mine either lol).**

**neuroticperioxideblonde: as I said in the original response to your review (which, along with the story, got revamped because my responses were...obnoxious), I really like your user name. Very unique. Much better than the one my middle school mind thought up lol. Thanks for reviewing the original.**

**Sparks Daimond: I still think your real name is pretty, just as I did in the original review response. Thank you for taking interest in the plot and the original story, and thank you for the review!**


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Breakfast Club or the characters

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Andrew woke up to the loud rush of water. He pulled a pillow over his head to drown the noise out, but quickly gave up trying to get back to sleep. He was already awake, and had to get up for school soon anyways. Instead, he decided to investigate the burden. Any odd noise in that house could have been a number of unsettling things.

He followed it to the bathroom, where John Bender stood, in front of the running facet, a face full of shaving cream, hair damp, and shirtless. Andrew froze in embarrassment; it never crossed his mind that with sharing a house, came sharing a bathroom. He looked down towards the faucet, watching as water spewed out much harder than it rightfully should have.

Andrew looked back at John's body. He was so much smaller than he looked in all the baggy layers. He wasn't skinny to the point it was unsettling, or scrawny like brain, he had muscle tone, but not like Jake. Not in a healthy sort of way. His hip bones stuck out a little, and his pants seemed to barely hang around his waist. Even with a belt, they seemed loose.

John ran his razor under the water, washing all the shaving cream off before bringing it back to his face. He looked towards the door, looked back at the reflection in the mirror, before doing a double take and jumping backwards. What he had presumed to be Jake was a somewhat more annoying presence instead.

Andrew's eyes immediately shifted to John's torso. A gash going diagonally, all the way from top to bottom that made a scar which was elevated to a noticeable height against John's skin. Andrew felt awkward, yet he couldn't help but stare.

"Get the fuck out!" John shouted, throwing his razor at the door as Andrew quickly closed it behind him.

Andrew's heart beat fast. Okay, so he had more than one scar. That didn't validate his story to be true. He could have just as easily done something stupid to earn that scar as he could have with the other one. But it was so big; he had to have been hospitalized. What the fuck could he have done to himself to get that?

So it didn't validate his story, but it made it a possibility. If that was the case, then the man who was now Andrew's step father had done that to his own kid. So what would he do to a kid that wasn't his own flesh and blood?

Andrew shook those types of thoughts from his head. John was an idiot. Just because the scar was huge, didn't mean the injury wasn't the result of some accident caused by John doing something ridiculous, which was what he did best. It was his third day there, and he'd never seen any sign of abuse anything. John had done something stupid, gotten hurt, and now as embarrassed by his own stupidity. That was the end of it.

John felt blood trickle down his chin. He'd probably cut himself when that fucking jock strap surprised him. What the fuck was he thinking anyways, walking in on John after he'd just gotten out of the shower, starring at him, scarring the absolute shit out of him, seeing him? John swallowed hard. He'd seen the part of him that he was most ashamed of. He didn't just fucking see it, he'd fucking starred at it.

John felt sick. He could barely look at the scar in a mirror, always trying to avoid it by keeping his eyes elsewhere. _He_ couldn't even look at it, how could he handle other people looking at it? It was like his father had branded him as "not normal". It was a constant reminder that John wasn't given the same opportunities as other kids, that he was different, and that he'd never escape that. Just like he'd never be able to wash the scar from his body, he'd never wash the reputation that followed him. The bittersweet rep that he tried so desperately to cling to, yet hated at the same time.

John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He couldn't let it get to him. It was unsettling, but he had to get over it. Andrew was living there now. If he didn't calm down, get his mind straight, and execute a plan to get him out, then he was going to see much worse than a scar. John needed to focus on preventing that from happening, not worrying about what had already happened.

He opened his eyes and picked his razor up from the ground. He needed to blow it off like nothing had happened. He needed to get cleaned up, and get to school. He wasn't going to get to go to college, but he at least wanted to graduate high school. Not become some drop out, living at home at the age of twenty one like Jake.

John finished shaving, rinsed his face off, and pulled his thermal shirt over his head. He then took a deep breath, opened the door, and stormed into his bedroom in his usual manner, like nothing was bugging him. He was going to play it off like nothing had happened, and hopefully, Andrew wouldn't bring it up. Hopefully, getting screamed at and having a metal razor tossed at his head was enough to keep Andrew away from the subject.

"We're not friends at school just because we're living together you know." Andrew said, making John laugh. He knew it was probably bleedingly obvious, but he didn't really know what else to say, and felt that silence would have been too awkward. He couldn't think of anything else to comment on quickly enough, so he just stuck with school.

"Oh gee, what a shame. I was totally hoping to hang out with you and all your interesting friends." John said as he slipped into his flannel shirt. The fact that after a month of being ignored at school, Andrew thought that now, suddenly, just because they were living together, that John suddenly wanted anything new to do with him, was almost as unsettling as if he had brought up what had just gone down.

"And it would be appreciated if you didn't tell anyone about where I was staying." Andrew added, ignoring John's response. This time, he wasn't just filling a silence. If anyone found out that Andrew Clark was residing in the Bender residence, living surrounded by pure trash, his reputation would be a thing of the past.

"You being here isn't exactly something I'm proud of either, Sporto." John said, rolling his eyes. Like he was about to tell the whole fucking world that the biggest jock in school was sharing a house with him. He didn't want people to know any more than Andrew did, and he definitely didn't want to risk people being okay with it, and Andrew having guests over, or at the very least, sharing with them everything that went down in the house. His reputation was just as much at stake, no; more so.

"Whatever." Andrew said, leaving the room to see what his mom had prepared for breakfast. He half expected to find nothing. They were living in the Bender household, living with trash, calling themselves a "family" with that trash. So why the hell not act like trash? Who were they kidding, having normal daily breakfast, family dinners (missing half the family), his poor, stupid mother trying to arrange bonding days? They weren't a family, they couldn't become one. The trash would replace any traditional family rituals that Andrew held sacred to him, long before normalcy replaced the trash.

John was starting to hate Andrew on a whole new level. A hatred he'd never felt for anyone before. He didn't hate Andrew like he hated everyone else, because they had normal families or normal lives and cars and scholarships. He didn't hate Andrew like he hated Chelsea, or the rest of the ghetto skanks, because they were proud, even flaunted, what he was ashamed to be: fucking trash. He didn't hate Andrew like he hated Mrs. Clark-Bender, for coming in and trying to mend their broken family, as if it were some quick and easy task. He didn't hate Andrew like he hated his dad, with every fiber of his body, a hate that was half fear, or like he hated Vernon, for being too much like his dad, or the way he hated his mom, for not being there when she should have been. Those were all hatreds that John had gotten years of practice with; that were familiar to him.

Andrew got a new category of hatred, one that belonged to him and only him. Andrew belonged to the category where he was hated for the insight he'd already gotten, and the insight he was still to gain. Andrew was hated as the wrecking ball that had already broken through the top portion of secure walls that John had surrounded his secrets in, the walls that let him live a somewhat normal life outside of his house..

Out of every student at Shermer High School, John had been the only one to know the state of his house, the state of his family, and what happened inside. Until then. Now two people knew, and John couldn't control what Andrew did with his share of the information. Andrew was hated, because Andrew was a threat. Andrew had moved himself from the base of the pyramid, where the majority of people that John hated fell, to nearly being at the tippy top. John hated Andrew, because Andrew was trespassing in his home and life, and with that, he was going to learn all of John's once secured secrets.

John grabbed Andrew's baseball cap from his bed and spit in it, before placing it back exactly how he had found it. That would show the asshole to go snooping around the house, to stare at other people's scars, to gain insight.

He threw on his first jacket, and trudged into the kitchen, grabbing his trench from the chair. As he pulled it over his shoulders, his father walked by, brushing against his arm. John froze, not failing to notice the immediate stare this earned from Andrew. He tried to pull it off cooly, while simultaneously, his mind went into overdrive. Why would his dad be up? He was never awake that early.

"Go on and get in the car Johnny. I'm giving you and Andrew a ride to school today." Joseph Bender said casually, taking a beer out of the freezer. Six AM in the morning, and he already drinking. Classy old Joe Bender.

John couldn't help but stare. His old man never offered to take him to school.

It wasn't like Joe _never _did _any _of the things real fathers did. Candy coating aside, he was far from a decent father, failing to meet expectations by a long shot, but he wasn't like some animal that just walked around the house, getting drunk, beating his kids, no matter how many times John pictured him as just that. There were times when, on good days, Joe seemed to have some level of affection for his kids. Not the unconditional love that other parents showed, but to the extent that he would talk to them as he would talk to his coworkers, or maybe the friends of his friends. Sometimes he'd start a conversation when he'd see either of the boys taking interest in something similar to his own interests, like when John started getting handy with a hammer and some nails (though, this common interest hadn't seemed to stop Joe from branding his son with a cigar after the accidental descent of an open paint bucket). He got the boys gifts on their birthdays, when he remembered, and on the holidays. They were just cheap things he'd pick up from the drug store, but there had to have been some affection present for the thought to even cross his mind.

So it wasn't the fact that Joe Bender had offered something other than his fist to John, because he had done so before, but _never _had he offered to drive him anywhere. Joe had even given reason for this. In Joseph Bender's words, "Gas is expensive boy. I ain't got the money to be driving you all over God's creation when you've got a perfect set of legs to get you where you need'a be". Not to mention, on the off chance Joe would ever change his mind and give his son a lift somewhere, he never expected it to be at six in the morning. Joe Bender was the common lowlife. He never rolled out of bed until noon, at the very earliest.

"You deaf? Get in the car. I don't have time to wait around." Joe said, bringing the bottle to his lips and sucking down the liquid. So he had other errands. That was why he was up that early, but it didn't take away from the absurdity of him driving John anywhere when he had a set of fully functioning legs to carry him.

John did as told. Pride aside, the morning walk to school wasn't exactly a pleasurable. A free ride probably wasn't going to happen again, so he wasn't about to turn down the opportunity. Even if it meant being in a metal cage with two people who had made it to the very top of his hate pyramid.

Andrew had already gotten in the back seat of the shitty 1975 bronco ranger. John kind of figured he wouldn't take the front seat, sit next to a man he didn't even know in an already awkward car ride, but he wished he would have. It would have been so much easier for John if he had gotten to sit alone in the backseat, while Andrew and his dad both sat a seat up. He half considered climbing in the other side of the back, which was at least better than the passenger seat when his dad was the driver. Of course, this would come off as strange, and a little faggy. It wasn't right for one dude to sit right next to another dude, when there was another available seat. He had no other option but the front seat. Fucking perfect.

The ride was just as awkward as John had imagined, yet significantly cut the time that was required to travel the distance. What he somehow thought would be a half hour ride, ignorantly forgetting the obvious, that traveling by car was faster than traveling by foot, ended up lasting only seven minutes. As a bonus, this meant they had arrived early. The school was almost vacant, which meant nobody would see Andrew and John getting out of the same car, walking into school together, a potential problem that neither one had thought of when accepting a ride to school, but had luckily and unintentionally avoided by waking up early in anticipation of a long walk.

"Well…have a good day." Joe Bender said, the words that were common to every other father, seeming out of place when they came out of his bearded lips. John scoffed at this awkwardness. His old man was actually trying to pretend to be a good dad, driving them to school, wishing them a good day. He wondered how long it would last, and made a mental note to take advantage of it when he figured out to what extent it would go to.

Andrew took significantly longer strides to the building than John did. He was actually excited to walk into the high school. It was familiar. It hadn't changed since he walked through the same door, a month earlier, when he was living alone with his dad. It had brought comfort the past month when he was living secretly in his mother's tiny apartment. It brought comfort now that he had downgraded yet again, to the absolute bottom of the pit.

He opened the door, closed his eyes, and stood still, breathing in the smell of hot papers from the printers, of moldy sandwiches forgotten in lockers, and of sweaty ballsacks from the gym. The smells that remained unchanged, in the building that remained unchanged, no matter what happened in the individual student's lives. It was the only thing in their existence that, no matter how much time passed, they could walk through the doors of, and feel like they were surrounded by old times. Like not a single thing in their lives was different, no matter how many months or years had slipped right past them.

John shoulder bumped Andrew on his way in, jolting him forward and catapulting his book, bringing him back to reality. He heard John mutter the word "faggot" under his breath. He imagined he had to have seemed pretty bizarre, standing there, with his eyes closed, taking in a deep breath, but why John had to be so fucking nasty about it was beyond him. It didn't matter though. Until that bell rang at two-thirty PM, his life was Bender free.

School suddenly posed as a threat of being Andrew Clark's favorite place to be.

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**A/N: Every chapter has finally been revamped. Now for the part that involves true motivation: finishing it.**

**~My Embarrassment Confession~ when I was writing the bit where John is trying to find an alternative to sitting next to his father in the car, I did get the "song" friday stuck in my head.**

**which seat should Bender take?  
**

**-Totally-T3ii3: Yeah, he was pretty out of character. Like...really. He wasn't sarcastic, witty, or aggressive. He was like...a fluffy fluffball of angst. Like an emo kitten or something. I'm not really sure what I was going for with his character. Apparently, according to my original review response, I was trying to show that he lived a double life. So apparently, according to my youth, at school, he is sarcastic, funny, and threatening, and at home, well...he's a fluffy emo kitten lol. Thanks for your critique and review of the original chapters one and two!**


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to The Breakfast Club or it's characters.

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A pleasant smile spread across Andrew's face. With his arm around Allison, his friends surrounding him, and the overall brightness and optimistic atmosphere of the cafeteria, he was instantly put back into his usual groove. Things had been getting increasingly difficult for him at his new "home", but at school, things were normal, they were right. He had his team, his girl, and most appealing of all, a getaway from John and his family, and the small piece of him that they took every day.

Living at the Bender residence was like sleeping in an alley way in the city. There was always an uncertain sense of danger. Nobody greeted each other, or even talked to each other much for that matter, with the exception of John and Jake. Andrew felt alone during every moment of the day, something that he wasn't particularly used to, being the big jock at school and the apple of his own fathers eyes. He felt alienated, like the other two boys in the house were part of some secret club he'd not been accepted into, that they belonged, and he was just an outsider.

It wasn't just the lack of interaction; it was the whole atmosphere that drained the color from Andrew's personality every time he walked in that damn house. There was absolutely nothing homely or comfortable about it; no pictures on the walls, or awards on the shelf, or report cards on the refrigerator. If it wasn't for the mess everywhere, Andrew would have sworn the house wasn't even lived in, that everyone there was just hanging out in a vacant house. Andrew's life seemed to have become an episode of the twilight zone. Everything that had happened just seemed too surreal.

School was different, because it was the same. At school, it was as if nothing had changed. He'd walk into the double doors, and suddenly, everything was back to the way it was supposed to be. School seemed like the only place Andrew could run to and get away from the Bender house, the bad neighborhood right in the middle of Shermer, and the unsettling feeling that his life was never again going to be what it once had been, because at school, he got to live under the act that it was _exactly _what it once had been.

There was, of course, one moderately minor flaw with Andrew's high school getaway, and that was Allison's new crowd of pampered bitches. Not that Andrew had never talked to any of these girls before, they were the most popular girls in school, people would have questioned his sexuality had he never hung out with any of them. He'd even dated a few of them, but never had any of the girls he'd dated wanted him to eat lunch with her, at her friend's table, away from his team.

It wasn't just Allison's friends, who weren't exactly worth talking to for their lack of intellectual social skills that made sitting at that lunch table a flaw in an otherwise perfect getaway. It was also Allison. What Andrew liked best about her, why he followed her request to sit with her at lunch, just to make her happy, was that she was different. She looked at the world differently, and challenged him to think different, but around her Barbie impersonating friends, she changed. She became the world's best actress, and made them believe that she was just like them, not even knowing what a disservice to herself she was doing. Having had a sip of the life where she was envied, liked, and noticed, Allison was immediately addicted to its strong and rotten taste. She couldn't imagine losing it, and couldn't go back to the way things had been before. She refused to be even a fraction of her real self around them, and instead, become some made up character, even adopting the name "Ally" to differentiate herself from who she'd been before (not that anyone remembered her from before, or even knew who the old Allison was). Andrew could put up with a couple of yapping preppies for a period every day, but he couldn't deal with his girlfriend turning into someone else, who was exactly like everyone else.

"Shut up!" Kiki, Allison and Clair's more annoying friend, shouted, immediately grabbing Andrew's attention before he realized she was just using an expression, "you totally did not meet Madonna. Like, come on, as if, get real!" she squealed, remarkably excited for someone who had just told Allison that there was no way she was telling the truth.

"I totally did. It was at a diner in Paris, really late at night. She told me she loved my hair, and gave me this bracelet, right off her wrist. I always wear it." Allison said with a clever smile, holding out her wrist as Andrew rolled his eyes. The charm bracelet was from a flea market she and Andrew had gone to right before the big Monday back at school. She did not get it from Madonna, she bought it for two bucks.

"No way! Ally, you are like, the raddest person ever! I'm _totally _jealous! Like, I don't know, you're just so rad! Like, isn't she rad Clair?" Kiki asked, intentionally snapping Clair out of her thoughts. Kiki had noticed that, since "Ally" had "arrived" at school, Clair had been more distance, and assumed it was because she wanted Andrew for herself, and was jealous of Allison. Kiki intended to start drama from this.

"What?" Clair asked, her cheeks slightly red. It was embarrassing to be spacing out all of the time, especially when her popularity depended on her socializing with people, but since that Saturday in detention, all the usual discussions with her friends seemed kind of…redundant, and a little insignificant. She quickly got bored throughout most of their conversations, and couldn't help but drift off and think about that one detention where she'd had interesting connections with four people.

"Hello, Earth to Clair? I said isn't Ally like, the raddest?" Kiki asked, unable to hold back the menacing smirk for the drama that she anticipated she'd already started. She couldn't wait for Clair's "jealousy" to get progressively worse, for her to start talking behind Ally's back, for her to get ballsy and say something to Ally's face, and for the inevitable cat fight. It was the type of stuff she lived for.

"Oh yeah. Totally rad." Clair said half heartedly. She could only imagine what lie "Ally" had gotten them all to believe in this time. For how different Ally was to Allison, they both seemed to have the same compulsive liar trait down to an art, and both were perfect at getting people to believe the garbage that they made up on the spot, no matter how ridiculous it was.

Truthfully, Clair was getting just as sick of the school "Ally" as Andrew was, and Andrew noticed. When it was just the three of them, Allison was her old self, just without the dark and frumpy wardrobe. She was bizarre. She said and did things that Clair and Andrew could only respond to with odd stares, and she was down to Earth, even when it seemed she was ready to blast off. It was the Allison they'd met in detention, the one they enjoyed hanging out with, but she had abandoned this self just to be liked by one stupid group of girls. She was trapped by the popularity. For both Clair and Andrew, it was like watching an old VHS of their own experiences dealing with the popularity, and all they could do was watch and realize that they were no different, because both of them were still stuck in the same pit that she'd recently fallen into.

"Hi Allison." Brian Johnson said in a soft, feeble voice as he passed their lunch table. Truthfully, Brian been aching to talk to the members of the former breakfast club since that first Monday on school, but was too afraid. He'd honestly been let down when none of them had said a single word to him, when they didn't even acknowledge that he was there, even in some of their classes. Everything had been just the way it had before, and he was heartbroken over it, but Allison was different…right?

"Isn't that," Allison started, pointing to the opposite end of the cafeteria, "the general congregation area of the freaks and geeks?" She asked, instantly ashamed of herself, but too caught up in the moment to break from her façade. She was at school, and at school, she was stuck in permanent bitch mode. She'd been given something she'd never had before, and she wasn't going to lose it, not to anyone, not even to someone as sweet as Brian Johnson. Besides, he had called her by her previous name. That action was punishable by the harshest of high school treatments.

Brian didn't say another word. He got his usual dopey eyed, ready to cry expression and walked off in embarrassment, too ashamed to even notice that both Andrew and Clair's mouths were dropped wide open, and they were both looking at Allison like she was the most despicable person they'd ever come in contact with.

While neither Clair or Andrew were ready to give up their popularity for Brian's sake, they had never planned on intentionally hurting him, that is, any more than their general disinterest in him would hurt him, of course. Brian Johnson was a good kid. He was socially awkward and extraordinarily annoying at times, but all he asked for was friendship, and nothing else. Just hat one simple thing was enough to brighten his life, and it made both Andrew and Clair ashamed that one of their own recruits had treated him so badly, and that they hadn't said anything.

"I just remembered, I have to talk to a teacher." Clair said, her tone half assed, as she pushed herself up from the table and nearly stormed out of the cafeteria. She could hear her friends snickering at her from behind. She'd just sprung up from the table and practically darted away, that was anything but cool. She hadn't even waited for their response, nor did she make a single complaint about having to talk to a teacher during her lunch period. They probably thought she was coming down with a case of the weird and disturbed.

She considered turning back, correcting her bizarre behavior, but the damage was already done. To turn around and say anything else would just further dig a hole for her popularity to rest in. She'd just explain it off the next day by saying she wasn't feeling well, and in reality, she wasn't. She felt sick to her stomach that she had created the newest bitch in school out of a girl who, while somewhat vindictive at times, was overall just a nice girl. And now she'd hurt Brian, and Clair had helped by not saying a single word.

Clair didn't know where to go. She didn't really need to talk to a teacher, but she considered making up some excuse to talk to one of the faculty members, just so she wasn't wandering the halls all by herself. The problem was, she didn't know which teachers were free that period, and she didn't want to walk in on a full classroom. She'd done enough to her popularity for one day.

She could have gone into the girl's bathroom. She probably would have ran into one of her friends touching up their makeup. At that moment, however, Clair wasn't in the mood to chit chat about shoes, or clothes, or junior prom. She had real issues on her mind, and just wanted to talk to someone who was going to be true with her, who'd _really _talk to her, instead of going on and on about the same materialistic topic. Unfortunately, Clair didn't have any friends like that, except Andrew, who was back in the lunch room.

Clair slid her back down the wall and sat against the outside of the lunchroom. She was too disgusted to go back inside, so it was looking as if she was going to spend her lunch period by herself, hidden right outside of the cafeteria. She put her head down on her knees, and closed her eyes. How was it possible, that after what was probably the happiest, most freeing day of her life, every day that had followed after seemed lonelier and more binding than ever before?

"Hey princess, you got a smoke?"

Clair opened her eyes. A big pair of clunky combat boots stood in front of her. John Bender?

She practically snapped her neck shooting her head up, anticipating the one person who could answer her loneliness, only to find herself looking up at some punk she didn't recognize. Surprisingly disappointed, Clair just uttered a small but stern "no", while not taking her gaze off the guy, glaring at him for unintentionally getting her hopes up, and glaring just because it was what was expected of her when one of _his _kind spoke to her, but then her face softened.

The kid was pale, and much scrawnier than John, which was noticeable even though a couple layers of clothing and a leather jacket. He had his hair done up in a Mohawk, and had died it peroxide blonde, and his wrists were completely covered with studded arm bands. He stood a couple feet away from Clair, but she could smell the tobacco in his clothes as if he were right on top of her. He wasn't John, but he was obviously the sort of Billy Idol wannabes who hung around John.

"Whatever. I knew it was a waste of time asking you." The kid said, turning to leave. For some reason, this made Clair anxious. He probably knew where John was, and while John Bender wasn't the type of person she wanted to be seen with, he was the only person who was always one hundred percent real when he spoke to someone. He didn't candy coat things, he didn't pretend to be someone he wasn't, he didn't bite his tongue when he had something to say.

"Hey, wait," Clair called back, pulling herself up and running after him, her heels clicking against the tile floor of the empty halls, "you know John Bender right? Do you, like…know where he is?" she asked, immediately feeling awkward. What must this kid have thought, standing there, being asked by one of the most popular girls in school for the whereabouts of the school criminal, with her rosy pink cheeks and her nervous stance?

"What business do you have with Johnny boy?" he asked, sizing her up. She knew exactly what he was thinking. She was just some little priss, who was either pissed at something John had said or done, or who he'd slept with or something, and he obviously disapproved. He was doing the exact same thing she would have done if he had asked for one of her friends. No, she probably would have been ruder, expressed her disgust, and blew him off.

"Ugh, he's my science partner spazoid. I need to go over notes for a project with him." Clair said, instantly going back into queen bitch mode. She knew it was probably a mistake; if he wasn't going to tell her where he was before, he definitely wasn't now, but she couldn't help it. She'd already jeopardized so much of her reputation within less than fifteen minutes, she wasn't about to lose any more of it by admitting that she was just looking for John for the hell of it, because she missed him.

"Well, I've got news for you, priss bitch, you're going to be doing that project by yourself. Even if you did find Johnny boy, you couldn't pay the kid enough to work with someone like you. Why don't you just pay some dweeb to do it? You've got the money to spare, don't you Prissilla?" He asked, laughing at his own joke. He had one similarity to John at least; he tried making Clair feel guilty that her parents had money, and how obvious she made it, and the worst of it all, was that he had succeeded.

"Oh, yeah, I am sure. Why don't you just forget it." She said, storming down the hall to the girl's bathroom, while he sneered from behind. Clair didn't care though, and she didn't even care that he'd made her so uneasy that she'd just left before getting the answer to her question. It didn't matter anyways, if she did manage to find John, what on Earth would she even say to him? "_Sorry I ignored you for the past month, but my friends are pissing me off, so how have you been"_? No way. He'd done her a favor.

* * *

John took one last drag of his cigarette, before tossing it on the grass and smothering it with his foot. He leaned against one of the posts to the bleachers, and looked out at the track. Sometimes, when he'd see that damn field, he always wondered if he'd be able to run it. He certainly wasn't a bad runner, not that he did so very often. Still, that Saturday, in the halls when the five of them were running from Vernon, he'd managed to stay in the lead the whole time, even while running with Andrew. He could probably run some stupid track if he could do something like that.

John shook his head and disregarded all concerns with the track. He'd gone outside to smoke, not get any extra P.E. practice in. Besides, he'd smoked enough cigarettes in his life to fill the trunk of a decent sized car. John Bender would never accomplish anything in the running field, unless it was first kid to ever kill over on the track because of a cancerous lung.

John heard a set of footsteps, and instantly snapped his head up. His heart beat fast; he half expected to find Vernon looking back at him. That was the last thing he needed, for Vernon to find out that John had discovered that the back gym doors were left open during class for deliveries, and so Carl could take the trash out throughout the day. If Vernon found out that John knew about this, that would be the end of the doors staying open, and that would mean that John's ticket outside the school during hours would be lost.

He was relieved when he saw Mickey instead. He could tell it was him, even from a few feet away. It was hard to mistake that Mohawk.

"You know, you really look like an asshole with that thing. What are you trying to do, signal planes?" John yelled out, not even bothering to get up and meet his friend half way, as Mickey picked up his speed and sprinted towards him.

"Funny. Hey, some Richie just asked for you. Some redhead? She said she was your science partner or something? You know anything about this?" Mickey asked, suspicion hidden in his tone, but not undetected. John knew exactly what he meant by his question. Why he'd ran out into the field, why "can I have a smoke" wasn't the first thing that came out of his mouth. Mickey suspected that John was making friends with richies, and he was getting the validation he needed to laugh his ass off, completely at John's expense.

"No." John said strongly, before mentally cursing to himself and realizing he'd said it _too_ strongly, "I mean, like the bitch said, she's my science partner. Why the hell do you care anyways?" he asked, flawlessly turning the suspicion back on Mickey. Honestly, John didn't know why the kid tried mind games with him all the time. Mickey was a fucking dumbass, he had no means of actually executing any of his half thought out "psychological tricks".

"Just forget it man. I just wanted to know what some Richie prissy bitch wanted with you, that's all. Hey, you got a smoke?" Mickey asked, immediately dropping the conversation once it was turned around on him, something that he did often. Mickey was just as spineless as he was moronic. He had enough balls to bring something up, but never stuck by his confrontations.

John sighed and handed him a cigarette from his pocket, lighting another up for himself. Still, as he sat smoking with Mickey, he couldn't help but wonder what Clair Standish wanted with him. One thing he knew, he was going to have a little fun with it, to repay her for ignoring him for a whole month.

* * *

**A/N: I didn't really like this chapter. I'll probably go back and redo it when I get motivation, but right now, it's sleep time. **

__**I'd imagine people are going to be pissed at me for taking Allison, a crowd favorite from the original characters, and turning her into a bitch. However, I wanted to try an approach where Allison does embrace the changes Clair made, and ends up getting too tied up in the popularity like Clair had. Like I said, I'll probably redo this chapter, but that's going to stay the same. **


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to The Breakfast Club or it's characters.

* * *

Andrew slammed his math folder shut, groaning loudly to the empty room. He'd been starring at the same page for an hour, and hadn't even finished half the problems yet. Granted, Andrew was never especially gifted at math, or anything academic really, but at the very least, he'd always been able to keep a high enough GPA to participate in sports.

He didn't know whether it was the ghostly silence of the house, the fact that his dad wasn't leaning over his shoulder, reminding him how much his grades mattered if he was going to compete, or just his stressful predicament all together, but he hadn't the slightest ounce of motivation. It was almost torture, trying to concentrate on a problem long enough to solve it.

Whatever was the matter with him, reading over the same problem fifty times wasn't going to fix it. He needed a break. He needed some interaction. Any interaction, he just couldn't stand the silence. Joe Bender had taken his mom to her new job, so that left them out, but there was always Jake. Sure, the older Bender brother had his immature and rather obnoxious moments, but he didn't have the same disdain for everything as the other two Bender men in the house.

Deciding that Jake was probably his best bet for any sort of socialization at home, Andrew got up from his chair and started searching around the house, but he found every room just as deserted as the one he'd been studying in.

_Thud. _It was the slightest bump against the front door, but it was enough to send Andrew into a fast paced walk that even he was embarrassed about. He was _desperate _for someone to talk to. He could remember the nights when his father seemed to chase him around the house, following him room to room, not letting him get any peace. How much he'd hated it, and how much he missed it.

Jake was not outside. Instead, John sat on the front stoop, his feet up against an empty and cracked flower pot. John looked back at Andrew, giving him a look that made him uncomfortable. While Andrew just wanted someone in the house to talk to him, ask him how his day was, comment on the weather, _anything, _John just wanted everyone in the house to leave him alone. If it wasn't his dad and his usual antics, Jake nagging his ass with just about everything, or Mrs. Clark-Bender trying to "change his ways", it was Andrew, who just had to exist in the same area as john to send him into full irritation.

"Do you know where Jake is?" Andrew asked awkwardly. It had just dawned on him how bizarre the situation was. There he was, in John's house, _his _house, asking about John's brother, for no particular reason. He could practically sense John becoming increasingly irate, though he hid it well, sitting back, inhaling his tobacco smoke, and pretending like he didn't care that the school jock was wandering around his house, looking for his brother.

"What's it to ya'?" He asked, unable to resist at least some inquiry as to why Andrew would be trying to locate _his god damned brother. _

Since Andrew had taken up residence in the Bender household, an unspoken system had fallen into place. That system being, all parties tried as hard as they could to pretend the other wasn't there, and go about life as they normally would. John and Jake kept to their usual bond, excluding Andrew as if they, in all honesty, believed that he wasn't there, and Andrew followed their lead, keeping to himself. Only out of contempt would he converse with John, and rarely would he ever say more than two words to Jake.

_So why the hell was he trying to find him? _

"I don't know. Just someone to talk to, you know?" Andrew said casually, leaning against the siding of the house. As his body went into the doorframe, he could hear the rusted, unstable paneling screech up against each other.

"What makes you think he'd want to talk to a fucking cock like you?" John asked, starring back intimidatingly, "he's not home." He finally added, his tone instantly transforming from agitation, to a much more dull, half assed tone.

"Where is he?" Andrew asked, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. His mom was at work, he had no idea when Joe Bender would be home, but he sure as hell wasn't going to try talking to him, and now Jake wasn't even around.

He thought about starting a casual conversation with John. True, the two had been nothing but hostile to each other since they found out their parents had eloped, and, while there were moments when they would put up with each other, they were never really that much better to each other in detention, but if they were going to be living in the same house, maybe that could change? Maybe they could at least be able to stand each other?

"How should I know? What am I, his fucking nanny?" John asked. Truth be told, sometimes it really did bother him that he didn't know where his older brother was. Odds were, if he wasn't getting into some kind of stupid fucking trouble, over shit that didn't matter, he was with Chelsea. Either way, John didn't like thinking about it, and he surely didn't like that Andrew shared his concern for Jake's whereabouts.

"Do you have to be such an asshole all the time?" Andrew asked, actually getting heated by John's attitude. Admittedly, Andrew Clark was somewhat of a hothead, something he wasn't very proud of. He tried his hardest to be chill, be cool about things and just let them take their toll, but John really tested him. He always had. Whether he was stealing a screw from the door, taking illegal drugs out of his locker, or just being a general asshole, he made it impossible for Andrew to stay collected.

"You tell me, _Sporto," _John spat, pulling himself to his feet and towering over Andrew, somehow managing to look a foot taller than his opponent, even though in reality, he wasn't more than four inches taller, "do I?"

"Is there a problem, boys?"

Joe Bender slammed the door to his rusted, 1975 Ranger. John briefly looked him over. His posture was straight, mostly, his speech was impeccable, and the Ranger was in no more shitty condition than earlier that morning. He was sober.

Joe Bender came in two different varieties of asshole. There was drunk Joe Bender, who stomped through the halls of the house, knocking over furniture and bumping into couches on his way to get yet another beer to add to his already elevated blood alcohol level. Drunk Joe was best if avoided. If you came in contact with Drunk Joe, you risked setting him off, which was easily be done by any random, unplanned action. If one actually managed avoiding anything that could set the drunk Joe off, one risked being the recipient of his misdirected anger.

Sober Joe was more of a special edition type of Joe Bender. He was somewhat easier to get along with, yet less likely to happen. Sober Joe thought he was a grade A type of dad, which disgusted John. Sober Joe would rationalize all of his drunk actions, he'd even somehow rationalize some of the shit he'd do without the influence of alcohol. Sober Joe was less violent, mostly, but somehow, just as unpredictable and scary as Drunk Joe.

"None at all." John said under his breath, taking his seat back on the stoop and trying to hide the curiosity he had for his father's lack of alcohol. He'd been sober in the morning, and he was sober now. Had he gone a whole day without a bottle? Was this some kind of fucking act? That was the only logical explanation. Joe Bender was going sober, so he wouldn't lose the pussy he'd somehow snagged. If he wasn't drunk, he was more able to control himself, and less likely to scare the new family off. So, did that mean that other things, in addition to Joe's alcohol consumption, would change as well?

John didn't care to find out. John would never admit this openly, but whether his dad was drunk or sober, he was still a terrifying force. There would be times when, against his better judgment, John would lose his self-control and antagonize his father even further, but for the most part, he tried not to start conflicts that didn't need to happen. Even if there was the slightest chance that he'd set his dad off, he would bite his tongue as long as he could, especially in front of such company as Andrew.

"Take the garbage out before Janice gets home tonight." Joe said on his way into the house. John practically cringed. He didn't know which was worse, his old man slamming a few beers down, followed by him slamming his kid's head against the wall, or his old man pretending to be a normal, functioning human being.

"Look," Andrew said after Joe left, practically startling John, who'd thought Andrew had long since gone inside, "let's get things straight. I don't like you anymore than you like me, but we're living together now, alright? I don't think it would be too much to ask that you compose yourself a little instead of acting like a fucking prick all the time."

John didn't say anything. Instead, he pulled himself to his feet again, took a drag of his cigarette, and slowly blew the smoke in Andrew's face. He then threw the left over bud on the splintered deck of his stoop, smothered it under his foot, and turned to go inside the house.

Andrew had had enough. He stormed after John, catching up with him in the living room and shoving him forward, unknowingly touching a tender area on John's back. There was a slight moment of fright when John turned around, glaring down at him, but he regained his composer and stood up just as tall, getting inches away from John's face.

"I'm getting really tired of your shit, you know that? So let's end this. Enough with your fucking attitude man, I live here now, and I'm not going anywhere, so you better get used to it." Andrew demanded, his voice raised and the vein in his neck prominent.

"Yeah, well take a good look at your fucking prize Sporto," John said, laughing condescendingly while showcasing the unhomely room. It made him almost sick that Andrew was defending the honor to be a member of the same fucking household that John was ashamed of. Not that he thought Andrew was particularly thrilled to be a Bender, but to boldly announce his permanent residence there, that made John almost nauseous.

"This 'woah as me' shit is getting pretty old too. I'm tired of this act that your life is so hard. I've been living here for days now and it's not as bad as you make it out to be. I don't believe a word you fed us in detention; you probably hurt your own arm doing something stupid. You're not fooling anyone with this fucking ego shit, so stop with the melodramatic angst already, you fucking prick." Andrew shouted, officially losing the cool he'd tried so hard to hold onto.

Unfortunately, Andrew wasn't the only hothead involved in the situation. John had just as bad a temper, and Andrew had tested it. A lot of things set John Bender off, but among the most dangerous topics, was bringing up any part of his home life; especially if disbelief followed.

Without even thinking, John grabbed onto Andrew and threw him against the wall. His chest heaved in and out with every heavy breath he took. He didn't know why it pissed him off so much, considering he didn't particularly _want _people to know what was going on at home, but the fact that after all the shit he'd put up with, someone would say he made it all up for the sake of his fucking image…that, was a sure fire way to set John Bender off.

After the initial shock wore off, Andrew sprung at John, putting him in a head lock and bringing him to the ground. Since Andrew and his mother had moved in, John had gone out of his way to be a dick to them. He was an asshole, and he was a fucking madman who needed to be put in his place.

John grunted and grabbed Andrew's wrist, unnaturally twisting it until Andrew was forced to let go. Still holding his wrist, he jumped on top of Andrew and hit him in the face, harder than he'd ever hit anyone before, as hard as he'd always dreamed of hitting his old man.

Andrew grabbed onto John's shirt and sprung to his feet, throwing John into the small coffee table as he rose. He watched, his chest heaving, as John fell backwards, knocking over a lamp and shattering it into large shards as his body knocked over the table it once perched on.

John had hit his head against the wooden table on the way down. He didn't move, but Andrew knew that he hadn't won yet. John was dizzy, and as soon as shock from the blow wore off, he'd be right back up, and more pissed than before. Andrew hadn't won yet, but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to. He was state wrestler, and he was going to show John that he'd fucked with the wrong person.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Joe Bender asked from the door frame as John attempted to pull himself up from the upturned table and shattered lamp, and Andrew prepared his stance.

Both boys froze. Joe took four long and powerful strides into the room, bewildered at his find. There was no further questioning as to what happened. Joe didn't need to know what had happened. He didn't need to know why John was laying over the smashed up lamp. All he needed to know was that another thing in the house was broken, and, once again, his good for nothing fucking son was right there at the scene of the crime.

Joe was no longer the nonchalant guy from earlier that day. He went dead to everything short of rage. His fists curled, his eyes dilated, and the strides he took towards his son almost seemed to shake the whole house. He was like a whole new person from that morning, and he made Andrew so uneasy that he shamefully darted for refuge behind the doorframe of the room.

He watched from safety as Joe picked John up by the throat, and threw him against the wall. John crumpled at the bottom of his father's feet, lying still as the intense pain ran down his back, but Joe wasn't finished with him. Using the wall as support, Joe delivered three powerful kicks towards John's abdomen, missing with the last kick, as John curled up for protection, and instead managing to get him in the face.

Andrew watched in horror as Joe caught his breath, standing unremorsefully over his still son. Everything that had happened was too serreal to be reality. Why hadn't John fought back? What the hell had gotten into Joe? Was it a preview of Andrew's future? What he would be trapped in? What inescapable hole had his mother had dragged him into?

"Get up," Joe demanded as his breathing slowed, and his tone eerily more calm than Andrew would expect it to be. John didn't move.

"I said get up. Stop acting like a pussy. You're embarrassing yourself," Joe demanded again, his tone more threatening. He was completely accurate. John was embarrassing himself, more than his father could ever understand with his fucking drugged out mind. He wanted to pull himself up, shake it off as if nothing had happened, and _be a man_. But something _had _happened, he'd had his fucking spine thrown against a wall, and his fucking ribs and skull smashed with his father's boot, and his body remained unmoved.

"Fuck you." John said, compensating with harsh words for what he couldn't do with his body. For this, he received one more kick, this one harder than the three before. A feat that John hadn't thought to be possible, and he knew there were more to come if he continued his insolence.

John took a deep breath, before pulling himself up using the corner of the couch for support. Once he was completely straight against the wall, he glared at his father, his hair over his face, and hatred and disgust beaming from his eyes.

Joe paid this no mind. He reached for the wallet in his back pocket, and pulled out a five dollar bill, "this", he said, "is for a new lamp. You're going to replace the one you broke before Janice gets home. Is that clear boy?" he asked, his tone dangerous.

"Chrystal." John retorted, snatching the bill without breaking contact with his father.

"Get this mess cleaned up." Joe said, leaving the room. As soon as he was out of sight, John let his body slide back down the wall, having forgotten Andrew's presence in the heat of the moment. He cussed to himself. His old man really did a number on him this time. His fucking side was still throbbing faster than his heart.

As John sat against the wall, holding his side and saying profanities under his breath, Andrew's temporary paralysis wore off. He was ashamed. He'd gotten in a fight to show John that he was a man, that he wasn't someone to mess with, and he'd ran off at the first sign of danger. He was ashamed that, while John was at least staying his ground, he'd darted for the nearest safe spot. He was even ashamed that he'd been the one to throw John into the lamp, ultimately being at fault for his attack.

Andrew tried his best to shake guilty thoughts from his head, and ran to John. He kneeled down next to him, opening his mouth to ask if he was okay, but John pulled himself back up and stormed out of the room the best he could, shoulder checking Andrew on the way out.

Andrew threw his head in his palms. He needed out of that fucking house.

* * *

**a/n: Why, yes, dear fanfiction readers, I did look up both Judd Nelson's height and Emilio Estevez's height just to make sure John was really taller than Andrew, and by how much. That is how much unnecessary detail I have put into this, for...no...reason. lol.**

**helinahandcart: I completely rewrote this story, so it's alright that you had forgotten about it lol. the earlier submission was...not...very...good. lol. I'm very happy that you get what I was trying to do with Allison, I was afraid that most people wouldn't :) Thank you for your review, it is much appreciated :)**

**tetisheri: I'm happy you like it :) Thank you so much for the review! **


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